You may not have heard of Lavat before; it stands for local authority VAT and the site has a wealth of information on it which will help you if you need to know anything at all about the subject.
Where can I find the website and what topics does it cover?
The home page for this website can be found at www.lavat.co.uk. The company itself deals primarily with local authorities and other similar entities, and does not help other small companies or businesses.
However that doesn’t mean there aren’t useful features on their website. And of course the VAT calculator is just one of these. You may also want to check out the links page, since this has a couple of links that you may find useful if you have an interest in VAT and other related subjects.
How do I find the VAT calculator?
You can find the VAT calculator very quickly and easily from the home page of the site. If you look at the main menu on the left hand side, you will see that there is a list of links you can click on. About halfway down that list is the VAT calculator. When you click on the link you will be taken directly to the page you need.
For future reference, if you decide to go straight to that page by bypassing the home page altogether, simply go to www.lavat.co.uk/vat-calculator. Nice and easy to remember, but you can of course bookmark it too.
How do I use it?
You will see that the VAT calculator is actually quite small and fits onto your computer screen without having to scroll. This is always convenient since it makes it very easy to use.
All you need to do is fill in the figures you have to hand, and the calculator will do the hard work for you. So for example, you should first of all type the relevant rate of VAT into the first box, which has the % sign next to it. Underneath this you will see a note about the VAT fraction – don’t worry about this because it will automatically appear as soon as you click away from the box in which you put the VAT rate.
Put the amount that you have in mind into the box below, and then indicate whether that amount is the gross amount, the net amount, or in fact the amount of VAT you know about.
You then need to complete your part of the bargain by hitting the button below, and the rest will be filled in for you.
Is there anything else I should be aware of?
You might be a little confused using this to begin with, but it is a lot simpler than it looks. The figure you type into the relevant area will be inserted into either the gross, net or VAT box, depending on which letter you indicate the amount is for. You can double check it by making sure the amount is the same as one of the three figures in the results column.
Once you have used this a few times you will be steaming through VAT calculations very quickly indeed. And the beauty of this one is that it is multi-functional. That means it is basically able to tell you the remaining two figures when you give it just the one to work with, which is extremely useful and very versatile.
So if you have some calculations to work out, make a beeline for this calculator before any other one. You might just find that you can do everything you want without having to swap between different VAT calculators.